Father says KU Hospital stopped him from seeing wounded son, threatened to arrest him

Wendell Ferguson was almost home from work when he got the phone call no father ever wants to receive.

“My daughter called telling me my son had been shot in the neck and the ambulance was rushing him to KU Hospital,” Ferguson told The Star six days after the Oct. 19 incident, his voice still cracking with emotion.

But what made the night worse, he said, is that the University of Kansas Hospital turned him away without answers and a police officer there threatened to arrest him for asking.

The fretful night started as Ferguson was nearing his 58th Street home from his job as owner of Mr. Wendell’s Gimme 50 Bucks and Turn on the Gas Tow Service.

Ferguson said he rushed to the hospital and went to the security window at the emergency room entrance.

“I said, ‘My son, Andre Ferguson, was shot. They brought him here. I’m Wendell Ferguson. I’m his father.’”

Ferguson said the man behind the desk was on the phone, but rifled through some papers and then told him he had no listing of Andre being in the hospital.

“I asked him to please check again,” Ferguson said. “I didn’t raise my voice, nothing. I said to him, ‘You are being pretty nonchalant for someone telling you their son was just shot in the neck.’”

Ferguson said a KU Medical Center Police officer standing behind the security guard stepped up and told him he would have to leave because his son was not there. Ferguson said that when he tried to explain himself further the officer accused him of trespassing and said if he didn’t leave he would be arrested.

Other relatives, including Ferguson’s ex-wife and their daughter, arrived moments later, and Ferguson said they were also told to leave. They had hoped to go to the waiting room to hear some information about Andre.

“I didn’t know what to do then,” Ferguson said. “I thought, he’s dead. He’s dead and that’s why they won’t let us in now. I was shaking.”

He said he drove around and around the hospital in a panic, not wanting to go home, “and not wanting to leave too far from the hospital.” He finally drove home.

Eventually, Ferguson’s sister walked in through a different entrance and found out his son had been admitted and was in surgery. Ferguson has since visited his son in the hospital several times and says the 23-year-old is recovering well.

His son told him what happened — in writing from the hospital bed because he still is unable to speak: It was about 8 p.m. when he drove his car up to a gas station near 13th Street and Quindaro Boulevard in Kansas City, Kan. He never got out of his vehicle. A person approached asking for money and then started shooting, striking him in the neck.

Kansas City, Kan., police said Friday the shooting is still under investigation and could not confirm Ferguson’s account of the circumstances that led to his son being shot.

Ferguson said that even after getting to see his son and receiving several apologetic phone calls from hospital officials, he still had unanswered questions.

Hospital officials declined to comment about the incident or acknowledge that Ferguson or his son were ever at the hospital. KU Hospital has an unwritten policy not to identify to the media any victims of crime brought there for treatment. Officials said the policy is for the safety of patients and staff.

But Ferguson says that should not apply to a father distressed about his critically wounded son.

“I don’t know why they would treat anyone this way,” Ferguson said. “I’ve never heard of anything like this. I am just appalled. Maybe if my skin were a different color I wouldn’t have been treated like that.”

Ferguson, who is African-American, said even though the hospital has apologized more than once, “they keep saying it was not the hospital’s fault. They keeping saying it was the police officer’s fault.

“I think they know now that this was truly a despicable way to treat a person and they want to pass the blame.

“I blame the whole hospital for the way they made us feel. We thought our son was dead. I mean that’s a phone call you never want to get. But if you do, you want some compassion.”